


Happy Ending

by ariaadagio



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Interstitial Scene, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 06:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18795160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariaadagio/pseuds/ariaadagio
Summary: Interstitial scene from episode 4x05.  Chloe reacts to the incident at Lux.  SPOILERS.





	Happy Ending

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Fin Heureuse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270053) by [GlitchedMindy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitchedMindy/pseuds/GlitchedMindy)



> Story title credit to Mika. This story was born from my desire to explain why the heck Lucifer wasn't immediately carted off to the emergency room. I mean, really, gut wounds are immediate-trauma-surgeon territory, not let's-linger-outside-the-ambulance-and-take-our-sweet-blessed-time territory. But then it turned into Chloe angst.

With a blissful look on his face, he exhales, and his eyes lose focus. She pats his cheek, trying to rouse him from his stupor, but he's gone, drifting somewhere far away from the shock of his injury. Her chest constricts, and her breath catches in her throat. No. No, no.

"Medic!" she calls. "Medic!"

Lucifer's gut wound is oozing again, making his sky-blue shirt look burgundy in the low lighting. The fabric is so saturated at this point, the material glistens. He needs more layers to soak up the blood. She tugs at her sleeve but can't remove her coat before two EMTs push her gently away.

SWAT clambers into the cramped space like ants swarming an apple slice left on the ground. Her world descends into a fog of shouting voices and flashing lights and the dust of pulverized drywall. But she can only stand there, watching the EMTs. Lucifer blinks sluggishly as they wrap him in a fuzzy gray blanket. When they lift him onto a stretcher, he doesn't protest being moved. He doesn't crack sarcastic pun-filled jokes about his predicament, either. He's quiet, and pliant, and his lips are about ten shades too pale. He looks … small.

"Will he be okay?" she asks, despite knowing if he were human, he'd be dead. He'd be  _dead_. If … he were human. Her lower lip trembles as a lump forms in her throat. He's … really not human. And she'd been awful to him. Awful and intolerant. So much so that he'd been shocked when she'd covered his body with her own. He'd thought she wouldn't even care enough about him to save him from  _death_. No wonder he wants to part ways. "Please, will he?"

The EMTs give her a grim look and rattle off a canned response about doing everything in their power. A bad sign. She knows it. They're not doctors, but they know what death looks like. They're entrenched on the front lines, fighting it every damned day.

"We'll take him to CSM," they say.

The nearest level one trauma center. Her stomach twists.

As they rush the stretcher away, the room feels like it's protracting into thin, breaking tendrils. Like heated caramel. And then she's hovering. Somewhere far behind her own eyeballs. Lost in the flurry of movement and too-much bright stimuli around her. Thinking. Scrutinizing. Condemning.

God, w _hy_  had she been so awful to him? Everything felt so stupid and petty in retrospect, and she wants a chance to tell him she was wrong. He'd almost died believing she feared him. That she couldn't accept him. Not even on a basic platonic level. And that's ….

"Is he …?" Eve warbles from somewhere beside her, and Chloe can only shake her head. "Oh, my God, he's  _dead_?"

Eve's exclamation is enough to twist Chloe loose from her inner downward spiral. "No," she rushes to say. "No, no. I'm sorry. He's alive." Was alive. Barely. "They … they took him. To. Um." She pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to suck in a trembling breath without crying, but the lump in her throat is thick and painful, and she doesn't manage it. "To Cedars-Sinai."

Eve darts away with a gasp, leaving Chloe behind. She should follow. To the hospital. But the idea of waiting, bereft and lost, for an exhausted trauma surgeon covered in Lucifer's blood to emerge and inform her there was nothing they could do …. Her stomach roils.

"Chloe?" someone calls. Dan. Of course, Dan. "Chloe! Thank fucking God." Arms wrap around her.

"God had nothing to do with it," she says, the words low-pitched and lost and gasping as she struggles for equilibrium.

Dan gives her a dark look. "I know."

His embrace tightens.

She lets herself be distracted.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, she notices the same EMTs lingering on the scene, triaging the various scrapes and bruises people had gotten in the blast. "What?" she croaks as one of them sticks butterfly bandages onto a woman's forearm. "Why are you still …?"

The EMT — a black-haired man in his twenties whose name tag reads Shamal — looks up at her, confusion marring his chiseled features. "Excuse me?"

She shakes her head. "What happened to Lucifer?"

For a moment, Shamal gives her a blank look.

"Lucifer!" she repeats, trying not to sound frantic. "The man. The man with the gut wound."

"Oh, the nightclub owner?"

"Yes, the nightclub owner! Is he—"

"He's fine, Detective," Shamal rushes to say. "Don't worry."

"Don't  _worry_?" She gestures to the massive, glistening red lake at their feet. "More of him is on the floor than inside of him!"

Shamal rubs his purple-gloved thumb over the dazed woman's bandage, whispering something soothing at her, and then stands up. He snaps off his gloves and pockets them. "It was the damndest thing," he says, shaking his head. "By the time we got him out to the ambulance, his wound was closed."

Chloe blinks. "Closed? The whole thing?"

Shamal nods. "He still needs a medical evaluation, obviously. His abdomen is tender, for one."

"Define  _tender_ ," she snaps through gritted teeth.

"Look," Shamal replies with a grimace, "he  _insisted_  that we go back and tend to his patrons, first. Said if he was gonna die, he woulda popped off to Hell by now, and not to worry."

Popped off. To Hell. She folds her arms over her stomach, hugging herself.

_If I pushed this into your chest, it would kill you?_

_Yes._

_Because I'm close to you?_

_Yes._

Fresh tears well up in her burning eyes. She gives Shamal a bitter, troubled smile. "He can be … p-pretty persuasive."

"Tell me about it." Someone across the bustling room calls Shamal's name, drawing his attention. "Listen, I've got some—"

"Go," she says, gesturing her acquiescence. "Go ahead."

As Shamal strides away, a nauseating, empty ache fills her gut like an expanding balloon. She clenches her fists. Lucifer … really isn't human. And she couldn't accept that quickly enough. But worse, she  _hurts_  him. Not figuratively. Literally. And, of  _course,_ he wants closure and distance from that. Of course, he does. How can she blame him?

Simple.

She can't.

She takes a shuddering, calming breath as clarity jams her thoughts through a prism and creates a rainbow with them. She wants to apologize to him. But who would an apology be for, at this juncture?

She tugs on the sleeve of the nearest police officer, a rookie named Joan Reyes.

"Hey," Chloe mumbles. "Is Lucifer outside?"

Officer Reyes nods. "Yes, ma'am. Right out front by the ambulance."

"Okay, thanks."

With another deep breath, Chloe steels herself. She's spent months doing what's best for her. This time she'll do what's best for  _him_. She'll let him go.

_~finis~_


End file.
